Quality-wise, Tiger Woods' year was far better than his rivals

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Along with victories, money and scoring average, another way to measure the strength of a golf season is total world ranking points. Tiger Woods won that category, too, but just barely over Henrik Stenson. A closer look reveals it was not really that close.

Most of my events I play in the majority of my career have been on the more difficult venues, and against the better fields

Tiger Woods

The difference, however, is that Woods played only 19 tournaments that awarded world ranking points. Stenson played 31 tournaments.

Woods earned an average of 25.7 points for every tournament he played, compared with 15.6 points for Stenson.

This is nothing new for Woods. He tends to play the toughest courses against the strongest fields. He also helps to make the field strong as the No 1 player in the world. And while he doesn't play often, he plays well when he does tee it up.

"Most of my events I play in the majority of my career have been on the more difficult venues, and against the better fields," Woods said this month.

"And now that we have not just the majors and The Players, but we also have the World Golf Championships ... and also the play-offs at the end of the year, you're getting the top players to play together more often. And I'm very proud of my overall record, especially in the bigger events."

Here's another way to look at it - the 19 tournaments worldwide Woods played this year offered an average of 72.7 points to the winner.

All of this made perfect sense to Ian Poulter, a student of the world ranking.